Uncle Sam's Misguided Children
by Nagi Kokuyo
Summary: It was them against Division, and that was all they had at the end of the day: each other. They were strange and dysfunctional, and somehow, they fit together like warped puzzle pieces. 50 sentences of Nikita, rated K through T


**DISCLAIMER: I don't own **_**Nikita **_**or related material, however much I wish differently.**

**50 Sentences of **_**Nikita**_

**Rated: K+ through T**

**Nagi Kokuyo**

**Gentle:** "I'll be gentle, I promise," Birkhoff murmurs in his ear, and even as the older man nibbles down his throat, Ryan can't help but think, _I wish you'd be rough instead._

**Safe:** She would never dare say it aloud, but Alex felt safest with Sean's arms around her, almost as if the man were a barrier between her and every bit of pain and sorrow that wanted to drown out the life she'd found.

**Startle:** "Hey, Owen—time to get up," Ryan said, nudging the sleeping man in the shoulder—and promptly receiving a swift and accidental punch from a startled ex-Cleaner, still not used to someone waking him up in the mornings.

**Panic:** It wasn't until the feeling of Daniel wrapping an arm around her waist became a little too familiar and a little too comfortable that Nikita started to panic.

**Gone:** For several long second, Michael doesn't register it, and then he takes in the vacant brown eyes staring _through _him in a whole new way, and his heart stutters in his chest as he realizes that he's holding his best friend's body, but Birkhoff is gone.

**Love:** No matter how much time passed, every time Michael told Alex how much he loved her, she knew that he was really thinking of Nikita, and every _maybe _that would have come along if she hadn't died.

**Gender:** It never mattered to Birkhoff that Ryan was a man, because he'd never cared about gender anyway; it was the _person _he loved.

**Wrong:** When Alex left his bed and gathered her clothes, fleeing quickly and without a word, she left Owen all alone, wondering what he'd done wrong.

**Snow:** When all was said and done, and the fight had run its course, Nikita and Michael were left lying in each other's arms, soft snow falling down onto naked bodies entwined as one.

**Lesson:** Birkhoff learned the hard way not to put his fingers in the lasagna before Michael was finished.

**Together:** _In sickness and in health, _Alex thought as she watched Sean sleep, _unless Amanda gets us first._

**Name:** He'd always hated his first name—Seymour, blech—but when Ryan whispered it in his ear just before he came, Birkhoff almost didn't mind.

**Tears:** After Michael's funeral, there was a lot of crying by just about everyone—even Owen wasn't dry eyed—but no one shed more tears that the widowed Nikita as she sobbed into his shoulder.

**Kiss:** It was completely unplanned and not entirely pleasant when, caught up in the excitement of finally ending it, Ryan mashed his mouth against Birkhoff's—noses bumped and teeth clacked together; it got decidedly better when the hacker adjusted the angle and kissed him back.

**Blood:** _Red was always her color, _Michael thought sarcastically as he hurried, frantic to staunch the bleeding, _but this is ridiculous._

**Aid:** Nikita was always coming to everyone's aid, but Alex can't help but wonder—_who comes to hers?_

**Scared:** When the day comes that Alex realizes Nikita doesn't have all the answers, she's so scared she can barely leave the loft, not to mention run headfirst into Division.

**Close:** Michael noticed, of course, that sometimes Birkhoff walked closer than he probably should've, but the agent could never tell if it was intentional; if it was, he didn't know how he felt about it.

**Time:** In Division, there was only so many ways one could pass the time, and Michael always found himself thinking of dark hair and bright futures.

**Stress:** Whenever the paperwork piles up for too long, whenever the President gets on their case, whenever the fights with Nikita and Michael get too loud—whenever the stress gets to be too much for Ryan and the world starts to close in around him, Birkhoff is always there to help him relax—usually with alcohol and pizza.

**Enough:** Just lying in bed together, feeling Nikita's soft, warm body against him, is enough to let Michael know that he is not alone.

**Forever:** It just hit him one afternoon, while listening to Birkhoff bitch and rant about his program's latest bugs, that he, Ryan Fletcher, wanted to spend the rest of his life with Seymour Birkhoff; crazy, caffeinated, manic, geeky Birkhoff was his forever.

**Hurt:** It hurt the first time, and the second, and third; after a while, Alexandra doesn't feel anything when the men come to her.

**Hallucination:** Even after the Q&A interrogation, Michael really believed that Birkhoff was a hallucination all the way up to the moment that the hacker dropped to his knees in front of Michael, pulled down his zipper, and looked up at him with the world's filthiest grin plastered on his face.

**Mouth:** Owen's head dropped back against the couch and he finally had to admit that, despite all evidence to the contrary, he and Michael really could get along—especially if the stick-up-his-ass agent kept using his mouth like _that!_

**Hell:** Michael would be willing to go through hell if it meant being able to hear her laugh, see her smile, and taste her lips again.

**Sad: **_It should be illegal, _Birkhoff decided when he saw his girl broken because of Amanda's cruelty, _for Sonya to ever be sad;_ that was when he vowed to take her away from Division, so she would never be sad again.

**Empty:** When she finally has her revenge, when she finally saw her father's killer punished, Alex thought she would get some peace; instead, she just felt empty inside, and she wondered if it would ever be different.

**Ink:** Maybe Birkhoff didn't know the stories behind all the tattoos, but he _did _know that they were important to Owen, and that was all he needed to know.

**Addiction**: Of all the drugs in the world, all the crap she'd shot into her body, Michael's kisses were the best addiction she'd had yet.

**Blanket:** After a week of sleeping on his office couch, Ryan didn't notice the chill—until the night (morning?) that his fitful sleep was interrupted by something warm dropping over him; he registered an affectionate hand ruffling his hair and a retreating figure before he slipped into the first good night's sleep he'd had in a long time.

**Devoted:** Committed is when you're bound to someone through loyalty or a physical bond, devoted is when you're bonded to someone on a far deeper level—Alex knew without a doubt that she was completely, helplessly devoted to Nikita Mears.

**Starving:** Alex hates it when she hears people claim that they're starving, because then she remembers days with no money and no food, doubled over on a sleeping bag, listening to her stomach growl.

**Violation:** The first black spot on his record was hacking his school's system for a longer lunch, though the cop was the one who cared; Birkhoff stopped listening after, "you are in violation of Penal Code—"

**Breath:** Birkhoff hates the way he holds his breath every time the new recruit—Niki—walks by.

**Burn:** Alex tentatively brushes her fingertips to Nikita's scar, feeling the rough, shiny skin under them; the woman smiles and kisses Alex's fingers, telling her silently that it was nothing to worry about.

**Home:** Nikita looked around the apartment—Owen and Michael bickering, Birkhoff shouting at his computer and Ryan at his side, Alex and Sean making kissy face, the pizza boxes and empty Chinese take-out containers, the flickering light over the sink, the guns on the counter and clothes that never made it to the laundry—and knew that she was finally home.

**Move:** It always amazed Alex how fast a computer geek could move when he heard three shots in swift succession and a shout of pain that sounded suspiciously like Sonya.

**Despair:** He'd seen many men die in war and it was an awful, ugly business, but losing _her_ was something else entirely, because he loved her, and because he had been right at her side when she breathed her last.

**Dysfunctional:** No matter how much Nikita loved her best friends, she was the first to admit that Owen and Birkhoff were probably the weirdest, most dysfunctionally functional couple she'd ever met, _including _she and Michael.

**Flying:** Sean figured it was probably just the byproduct of all the drugs he was on, but inside, he knew that when Alex smiled at him, it was almost like he was flying.

**Good-bye: **Birkhoff had never been good at saying good-bye, but when Sonya slipped her hand into his as Michael's coffin was lowered into the ground, at least he had an anchor.

**Eventually:** Maybe their relationship is moving at an incredibly slow pace, and maybe they both have their issues to deal with, but Alex and Nikita know they'll get there, eventually.

**Dark:** Birkhoff never figured out what Sonya had done to deserve Division, because she was too good to be part of something so dark.

**Hollow:** Without him, she felt hollow, like her heart had been ripped out of her chest; with him, she felt like she didn't need one.

**Boring:** Ryan didn't mind all the excitement of Team Nikita—the explosions, the fighting, the secret war—but sometimes, he wouldn't mind if things were a little more boring.

**Flexible: **Birkhoff gaped as he watched Nikita go through her yoga routine—"…you shouldn't be able to _do_ that."

**Hope:** He fell asleep in the hospital chair to the steady beats of a heart rate monitor, hoping to anyone who would listen that she would wake up.

**Peace:** Sometimes there were quiet, laidback moments together when Michael and Owen couldn't be bothered to antagonize each other…then one of them would get bored and open their mouth, and then it was up to Nikita to pull them apart before someone was hurt.

**Advantage:** Alex had been taken by surprise when she tripped over the cord of that damned lamp Owen had brought with him, plunging the room into darkness and landing right in Birkhoff's lap, but she decided to use it to her advantage.

**Review please!**

**And yes, I'm aware that all these can't happen in the same universe, but that's what's great about fanfiction. It doesn't matter.  
**


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